``I mainly watched [baseball) in the playoffs and World Series [before), but this year, man, I watched it like a hawk,'' Hillin said before Friday's qualifying for the Jiffy Lube Miami 300 at the Miami-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex. ``I was looking for every game on TV. I looked in the paper every morning to check all our players' stats. We could have had a fantasy league with our owners.''

If that had been the case, Hillin's fantasy team would have raked in plenty of points from McGwire, who hit home runs with such frequency that he forced constant updating of the number on Hillin's car.

``I don't think they ever had to change it during a race,'' said Gaetti, grand marshal for Sunday's race. ``But they'd change it the day before or in between a practice session. If he hit one that night, they'd change it before the race the next day.''

The baseball players made their foray into auto racing through Sheaffer's friendship with Hillin.

Sheaffer introduced Hillin to Gaetti when Sheaffer and Gaetti were teammates with the Cardinals, and the trio started talking about putting together a Busch Series racing team.

``[Sheaffer) kept working on me, and I started finding out a little how it worked, started watching some races on television,'' Gaetti said. ``I finally got to a race in Atlanta a couple of years ago. That was pretty much it. Once you've been to a race, you know you love it or you don't. I was so impressed with what I saw.''

The discussion became serious last year and one-by-one _ first Benes, then Morris, Schourek and McGwire came aboard.

``We actually wanted to borrow Mark's name, do something fun for the baseball players, try to mix the two sports and follow his home run total on the car,'' Gaetti said. ``We came to find out one of his financial advisers really liked racing a lot. He had an ownership unit left. Mark liked the idea and decided to go for it.''

Even if the players weren't experts on auto racing, their experience gives them an understanding of a key element to auto racing _ teamwork.

``They understand competitive sports, so it's not like having a business owner that wants to do everything from a business perspective,'' said Hillin, who failed to qualify Friday after a 48th-place finish. ``There are so many personalities that have got to work together, so many things have got to click, so much communication has to work together to make things happen. The baseball players understand that from their sports. So it's kind of neat how they understand and support me.''

Hillin, who made his NASCAR debut in 1982 at 17, was the youngest driver (22) to win on a superspeedway in the Winston Cup Series when he took the checkered flag in the 1986 Talladega 500.

This year, Hillin is 25th in the Busch Series points standings with one top 5 and five top 10 finishes in 22 starts. Hillin will run in the Busch Series next year with the hope of getting back to Winston Cup.